Bob Kerner
November 3rd, 2009, 04:53 PM
I need some help with the audio quality of my DVDs. Everything sounds alright on my editing computer from within Final Cut and it sounds alright when I "simulate disc" prior to burning. But when I play the DVD in a standalone DVD player, the audio is noticeably lower.
I'm using Final Cut Studio as my NLE and DVD Studio Pro to author SD discs using audio and video tracks output from Compressor. I use the Compressor DVD Best Quality settings which produce a Dolby 2.0 AC3 file (48 kz. 16 bit 2 channel Center Mix -3 db, Surround Mix -3 and Dialog Normalization -27 dbFS) and an MPEG 2 video file. I do not process the original soundtrack in Soundtrack Pro to adjust levels or normalize....just take it from FCP to Compressor to DVDSP.
What should I be doing in my workflow so the sound on the DVD is closer to what I hear when editing?
For some reason I think I'm altering the sound file twice: once in compressor and a second time when DVDSP muxes it. Could this be the source of the problem?
Someone told me to just increase the track levels in FC so they are louder overall; however, that seems rather imprecise. There must be target levels (that I'm unaware of) for the audio in order to get best results....no? Right now I try to maintain peaking around -6db on the FC meter.
I've searched thru Google and the answers are all over the place and mostly pertaining to AIFF files, which is not what I get from my Compressor pre-set for DVD. Thank you
I'm using Final Cut Studio as my NLE and DVD Studio Pro to author SD discs using audio and video tracks output from Compressor. I use the Compressor DVD Best Quality settings which produce a Dolby 2.0 AC3 file (48 kz. 16 bit 2 channel Center Mix -3 db, Surround Mix -3 and Dialog Normalization -27 dbFS) and an MPEG 2 video file. I do not process the original soundtrack in Soundtrack Pro to adjust levels or normalize....just take it from FCP to Compressor to DVDSP.
What should I be doing in my workflow so the sound on the DVD is closer to what I hear when editing?
For some reason I think I'm altering the sound file twice: once in compressor and a second time when DVDSP muxes it. Could this be the source of the problem?
Someone told me to just increase the track levels in FC so they are louder overall; however, that seems rather imprecise. There must be target levels (that I'm unaware of) for the audio in order to get best results....no? Right now I try to maintain peaking around -6db on the FC meter.
I've searched thru Google and the answers are all over the place and mostly pertaining to AIFF files, which is not what I get from my Compressor pre-set for DVD. Thank you